re.

"I'm glad to see you here, _rya_, in my tent," said the before-mentioned
Ben Lee to me one night, in camp near Weybridge, "because I've heard, and
I know, you didn't pick up _your_ Romany out of books."

The silly dread, the hatred, the childish antipathy, real or affected,
but always ridiculous, which is felt in England, not only among gypsies,
but even by many gentlemen scholars, to having the Romany language
published is indescribable. Vambery was not more averse to show a lead
pencil among Tartars than I am to take notes of words among strange
English gypsies. I might have spared myself any annoyance from such a
source among the Russian Romanys. They had not heard of Mr. George
Borrow; nor were there ugly stories current among them to the effect that
Dr. Smart and Prof. E. H. Palmer had published works, the direct result
of which would be to facilitate their little paths to the jail, the
gallows, and the grave.

"Would we hear some singing?" We were ready, and for the first time in
my life I listened to the long-anticipated, far-famed magical melody of
Russian gypsies. And what was it like? May I preface my reply to the
reader with the remark that there are, roughly speaking, two kinds of
music in the world,--the wild and the tame,--and the rarest of human
beings is he who can appreciate both. Only one such man ever wrote a
book, and his _nomen et omen_ is Engel, like that of the little English
slaves who were _non Angli_, _sed angeli_. I have in my time been deeply
moved by the choruses of Nubian boatmen; I have listened with great
pleasure to Chinese and Japanese music,--Ole Bull once told me he had
done the same; I have delighted by the hour in Arab songs; and I have
felt the charm of our red-Indian music. If this seems absurd to those
who characterize all such sound and song as "caterwauling," let me remind
the reader that in all Europe there is not one man fonder of music than
an average Arab, a Chinese, or a red Indian; for any of these people, as
I have seen and know, will sit twelve or fifteen hours, without the least
weariness, listening to what cultivated Europeans all consider as a mere
charivari. When London gladly endures fifteen-hour concerts, composed of
_morceaux_ by Wagner, Chopin, and Liszt, I will believe that art can
charm as much as nature.

The medium point of intelligence in this puzzle may be found in the
extraordinary fascination which many find in the monotonous tum-tum of